Category: Circus

Unicorns, Hula Hoops, Giving Stuff Away; The To-Do list

7/13/2012

Origin Stories

A Unicorn Wearing a Unitard, Riding a Unicycle, that was the caption to a photo that I came across several months ago on facebook.

I commented that if only I had a unicorn mask I could go one Uni further by taking the collection of Uni's to Universal Studios and I thought that was the end of it.

Two days later, I come across aforementioned Unicorn mask. I realize that at this point most people would simply smile and enjoy the ironic coincidence.

And I almost did, but the mask spoke to me. It was as if it were fate. So I bought it. And the unicorn has been finding its way into all sorts of photo-ops.

Seeing out of the mask is a challenge.

And then of course there is the aspect of riding the unicycle.

When I was a clown for children's parties a quarter of a century ago, I could handle myself on a unicycle.

I bought one around a year ago, .....it's not like riding a bike. I've been able to shake some of the rust off but I do need to practice. Especially if I'm going to be wearing the mask.

What is a Morphsuit Anyway?

I saw this in the window of a store in Atlanta and didn't buy it.

That was before I realized to complete the trinity, I needed a unitard.

A Morphsuit is like a unitard plus, a unitard with a head, hands and feet.

Morphsuits are awesome. I got mine yesterday and well it will take some getting used to. There is definitely a learning curve.

So now I've got all the elements. I just need to get my skills on the unicycle and then the balls to take this stunt on the road and over the hill to Universal.

I've got two weeks to practice and summon up the courage.

Happy Hooping

Last night we braved the LA traffic to head across town to The Groove Spot home of Fire Groove to attend a free Free Intro to Poi, Staff & Hoop!

Even though we probably spent 2 1/2 hours getting there and back due to LA's bizarre fear of a little rain plus an Art Walk that got Occupied and some crazy mess on Lincoln Blvd., it was worth it.

I have been a bit remiss on connecting with the spinners, flow artists and circus types since being back in LA.

So landing in The Groove Spot and then spinning and twirling stuff made me realize how much I missed the experience.

I had thought that hooping was going to be Skye's thing. Besides my jiu jitsu, I had running, Indian Clubs, juggling, and of course uni-cycling to fill my dance card and that is just barely scratching the surface.

But lately I have been getting into the flow of hooping. It's rhythm and movement calms me. It also is a good warm up and I can get my shoulders loosened up especially with the mini-hoops.

Skye left with a new goal; to hoop with fire.

Pennies on the Dollar

There are so many ways to try to sell your stuff. Craig's List, Ebay, facebook, Amazon and so on and so on and of course, word of mouth. I have had varying degrees of success with each over the years.

Part experiment, part learning experience, part practical;

We'll see how it goes this time around.

At the end of the day, I'm mostly wanting to part ways with this stuff. However, being on a limited income, and not "working", at least not in the traditional sense of it, I feel I need to at least try to get some money for these things.

That said for friends, most of this stuff would be free.

So here goes; more stuff, if you click on a picture it might take you to a link that gives a better idea of the item or it might say free or......

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Where DOES the Time Go? Where Did I Go?

4/15/2012

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Time-The One Thing Money Can't Buy....Sort Of

A month ago yesterday was St. Patrick's Day and our first day of shooting on Revolution, and the first day of the X3Sports Body Fat Loss Challenge!, which I had signed up for the day before.

It was a landmark day to say the least and Guinness and Bushmills had little to do with it. I had promised myself that I wouldn't let the job take over my life, but I knew that was an empty promise from the start. Meanwhile, in regards to the Challenge, I kind of figured I'd be giving up a month, in a 61 day challenge, making it only more challenging.

Here we are a month later, and at 5:15 am I'm writing this blog post cause I can't sleep, my sleep pattern still suffering from the job, which ended on Wednesday, but continues to haunt me via e-mail, phone calls and texts.

Here I am on my last day, trying to make heads and tails of a month of "just get it done" accounting and buying methodology.

From the 1st day of shooting til near the end I only had 2 days off and I pretty much worked on those days as well. It wasn't for the money. I didn't get paid for more hours than I care to remember, which I can scarcely do anyway; it's the "show must go on" mentality that is the film business. They bank on it even when they don't understand or get it.

Some Things I Missed

I had to skip out on just about all of my Circus classes, although I was able to make it to Skye's "show-off" performance.

I didn't make it to jiujitsu in over 5 weeks which made my return more than a little painful.

I missed out on many trips to the farmers markets.

But I did get more than enough hours for my pension and health benefits, which is why I took on this job and I ended up making some nice coin as well.

Haunting Images

It's amazing what can upset the apple cart so to speak.

This couch which had been approved ended up almost being my undoing. We bought it, but didn't use it and the repercussions of that were overwhelming to say the least.

Getting Back to My "Normal" Life

I've only been off for around 3 days and have managed to get to a matinee, make it to the Grand Opening of the Peachtree Road farmers market, run the Great Urban Race with Skye and attend a World War II reenactment, of sorts.

Home Schooling Takes You Places

Skye is taking a Swing Dance class with some local (Atlanta) home school types and her teacher was performing at this WWII reenactment.

So after waking up bright and early to get to the farmers market and then running around Atlanta for around 5 hours, we headed out to the dance.

Her teacher went on just shy of 11 o'clock.

Needless to say on our drive home there were a couple of sleepy "soldiers".

Into the Great Beyond

It's just creeping past 6:20 am and all we have on the menu today is a matinee of the Three Stooges; Cindy worked on it and Skye loves the Stooges, the original ones that is, we'll see what she thinks of the Farley Brothers' update. And then a re-invention of Riding Hood over at the Goat Farm, Rua | Wülf.

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34th Annual Groundhog Day Jugglers Festival

2/7/2012

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A CLUB THAT WILL ACCEPT PEOPLE LIKE ME AS A MEMBER

The Festival was a 3 day extravaganza with a juggling competition Saturday. I just barely dabble in juggling. I have 3 beanbags and a bunch of silk squares mostly to teach other people the very basics. I don't even own a set of clubs. In no way do I consider myself a "juggler". So how did Cindy and I end up at the local Shrine auditorium on a Friday night and then again the next day?

We went on Friday because I actually was looking to buy a set of clubs and I figured rather than order some on -line, I'd save a little on shipping, buy "local" from one of the event vendors and actually feel and handle the clubs before buying them.

Barely any vendors had set up on Friday, but it was cool to see so many jugglers and the like playing, practicing, and sharing.

Warning: This post is only a little bit about juggling, but juggles a lot of different bits.

Juggling Six Degrees of Separation

"Six degrees of separation refers to the idea that everyone is on average approximately six steps away, by way of introduction, from any other person on Earth, so that a chain of, "a friend of a friend" statements can be made, on average, to connect any two people in six steps or fewer."

I've often thought that instead of looking as "being steps away, by way of introduction" as "being links to connection".

I had first heard about the festival through a facebook friend's post saying he was going to be a vendor. Now I had never met this "friend" before. Forged Creations (Jay Becker) and I had mutual "friends" through the "burner", "spinning" "performance" community of Atlanta, plus I really liked his metal work. So it would be great to see his pieces in person. Plus I really do like juggling and was hoping to maybe get inspired and actually commit some time and energy to getting better.

When we pulled in the parking lot on Saturday it was much more crowded. And before we parked we saw someone we knew. Actually Cindy saw someone she knew and had just worked with, who was part of The Seed & Feed Marching Abominable, Atlanta's wildest community band.

Running with Circuses

When we first arrived in Atlanta last summer, Skye "joined" the circus for a couple of weeks of summer camp. One of her instructors was at the festival.

Several of the camp's alumni and teachers also teach at the Circus Arts Institute, where the two of us have been taking class a couple of nights a week for the last several months.

I'm with the Band

There she is (yellow boa) playing the clarinet. We've now unknowingly been to three events where she and her gang were performing/ merry-making.

Equipped to Go with the Flow

I love this bag of tricks, everything from hula hoops, clubs and balls to "cigar boxes" and stilts. So cool, so much fun, so much flow.

from Wikipedia
"Flow is the mental state of operation in which a person in an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity. Proposed by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi,(a link to a TEDtalk he did) the positive psychology concept has been widely referenced across a variety of fields."

from the Flow Temple website:

Flow Arts is a fast-growing fitness and meditation practice that blends play, exercise and dance into a fun and healthful activity that moves the body, stills the mind and uplifts the spirit. It's a physical workout that is also a brain booster, a relaxing way to chill out, and a compelling performance art.

Csikszentmihalyi became fascinated by artists who would essentially get lost in their work. Artists, especially painters, got so immersed in their work that they would disregard their need for food, water and even sleep.

Hoopers flow. Poi-spinners flow. Jugglers flow. I get into a flow when I do jiujitsu. There are all sorts of ways to get into the flow.

Caught in the Act

I took a quick picture up to this gang of kids up to no good only to find myself in the picture.

Way up in the corner, you probably won't be able to find me, but I did.

For Those Who Come to Juggle, We Salute You

There actually was juggling at the juggling festival, although that might be hard to believe from this post.
The boy in the yellow was the youngest of those competing.
The group that's all fuzzy, did a hysterical interpretation of Twilight. Edward was a juggler, Jacob was a yo-yo artist and the werewolves rode unicycles. It was quite imaginative.

One more thing that I learned was how limited my little point and shoot camera is. I took a ton of pictures, most even more blurry than these.

Get Me Out of Here

After a couple of hours, sitting in the bleachers, Skye was done with the festival.

The big gorilla puppet that she seems to be avoiding is another one of those six degrees of, I mean, links to connection.

I first ran across a picture of Picasso the Gorilla when I was trying to find the name of a local artisan that I had purchased a gift from at the East Atlanta Village Christmas craft show, which I only knew about because of the East Atlanta farmer's market.

At the time, I thought he was pretty amazing and very cool. And completely out of the blue, he shows up at the juggler's festival and I get to check him out in person.

Jugglers hanging out talking about juggling,
a tiny tike spinning around on a tiny unicycle.

That pretty much sums it up.

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Boy Toys

12/1/2011

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Toys for Boys

OK, both those titles are a bit silly, but then again this post is going to be pretty silly and hopefully somewhat humorous.

I see possibilities for unique and fun exercise around me all the time. The trouble is and it is in keeping with this website's title, Jon-of-All-Trades, that with many of these concepts, routines, modes of exercise, there should be a level of proficiency before working it into one's fitness regime.

For better or for worse, I don't let this stop me.

I've been rather obsessed with balance boards and rola-bolas. I think it started at circus class. I was having a blast playing around on the ones they had there, but I realized I was spending time groovin' on the board which seemed like something I could make and actually do with minimal impact back at the condo, while things like trapeze, the Spanish web, and the tight wire were items that would be hard to duplicate outside. It was after all just around a month ago that Skye almost got stuck in a tree, around 30 ft up, trying to set-up a rig for our aerial silk.

The set of wheels ganged together, the three pipes and of course the two boards are all elements of the balance boards and rola-bolas. The platform is a ladder-type thingy I saw at the hardware store and got my imagination exploding with ideas. The rope, well, is a rope. A jump-rope to be more precise.

Endless Possibilities

When I first saw this, I thought about how often I could have used such a simple device on the job, of set dressing, that is.

Then I started thinking that it was about the right size for a bench to work out on or a step to do some plyometric training.

Sold.

When I got it home I couldn't wait to start playing on it. I grabbed one of my sandbags and tried some light bench pressing. It felt good.

I dropped one side down, it made a decent incline/decline bench, until I somehow got my fingers pinched by the leg. OK, remember to go slow and be careful everything is locked into place.

I stepped up and stepped down. I did it with a sandbag. It was more than stable enough.

I jumped up on it. I jumped over it. At 21 inches tall and 12 inches across, it was a pretty ideal height for me.

Then I started looking at the balance boards.

I placed one up on top of the platform, I stepped up and quickly got down. I'm not that crazy and least not this time. I started playing around with doing some hand balancing on it. Refer back to the proficiency comment above.

I decided to collapse it down and use it as a deck for the balance board. The carpet was just not the right surface for me to work my craft.

On second thought, the carpet may be the ideal surface, at least for now.

K.I.S.S.--Keep It Sweet and Simple

I prefer Keep It Simple Stupid, much more applicable the majority of the time.

I have been jump-roping on that blue gymnastic mat in the background. I felt the extra padding would help lessen the impact and I'm sure it does. It also makes the skipping slower and harder and not as much fun. After the first few times I just figured I was way out of shape and then I tried skipping on the carpet and just like that I was hopping around like Ali. Talk about hyperbole.

Today I decided to just use a rope, you know forgo the store bought one with the fancy handles with ball-bearings. I grabbed some 1/2" rope, wrapped it around each hand and started skipping, real old school.

The rope made this amazing swooshing sound, it was big and heavy and really, really slow. Because I had to jump so much higher due to the slow rotation, coupled with the burn in my forearms with having to turn the rope each rotation nearly floored me. I had churned out 3 minutes like it was nothing with a standard jump-rope. With the rope, I was gasping after 30 seconds.

K.I.S.S

"Just Like Riding a Bicycle"----NOT!

I had only had this unicycle for a few months before our Los Angeles exodus. So I didn't ever really get back into to it. Of course, I had to haul it across the country, so that I could end up regularly moving it around trying to find somewhere to store it. I did this so that I would feel foolish for bringing more "stuff" than I really needed, anything to make this whole semi-nomadic thing more impractical than it already seemed.

I will get proficient again on this loopy contraption. It won't be a lame decision in the long-run. In fact, I will get to the place, where I know that I would have regretted it, had I left it in storage.

My dismount needs help too

I had forgotten how hard uni-cycling was. I didn't remember what a great leg workout it can be. It's much easier on your legs when you're proficient(see above).
I'm getting the going straight thing, well sort of.
Turning, slowing down, mounting it without clinging desperately to something solid, well all these things are going to take some time.

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Unicorns, Hula Hoops, Giving Stuff Away; The To-Do list

Where DOES the Time Go? Where Did I Go?

Time-The One Thing Money Can't Buy....Sort Of

34th Annual Groundhog Day Jugglers Festival

Boy Toys

Toys for Boys

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